/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2005/01/09/#launchpad.txt

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dilysMerge to rocketfuel@canonical.com/launchpad--production--1.8: sync with devel (patch-20)01:30
stublifeless: Ta02:25
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!lilo:*! Outage New Year's Eve morning; news item on http://freenode.net/news.shtml .... thanks, and thank you for using freenode! :)04:29
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SteveAkiko: dude, you were burgled?01:35
kikoSteveA, yeah, I sort of guessed it before leaving.01:35
kikohow are you doing? back in .lt?01:35
SteveAyeah, back in lithuania.  strangely, no white christmas this year.  but it snowed yesterday.01:36
kikomust feel good being home after so much fivestarring.01:37
kikoI've still got to get my act together, my house is still a proper mess01:38
SteveAbut you have a shower now? 01:38
kikoinbox is also still scary, 833/147801:38
kikoyeah, we got a shower a few months ago -- but I still miss the cold douche01:38
kikoelectric showers kind of suck01:39
SteveAi was going to play with shtoom today, but sound for i810 is broken in hoary at the moment01:42
kikoSteveA, how's aiste?01:43
SteveAshe's okay.  came 3rd in a horse jumping contest yesterday, actually01:44
SteveAthat is, being on a horse, jumping over obstacles.  not jumping over horses.01:45
kikoshe did indeed say something about horsejumping over the holiday season01:45
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SteveAhi matt02:08
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dilysMerge to rocketfuel@canonical.com/dists--devel--0: roomba snapshot (buildbot/autotest) (patch-43, david.allouche@canonical.com)04:10
!lilo:*! Hi all. If you're aware of a *working* pastebot on the network (you invite it to your channel, it announces pastes) whose owners don't mind having added to some arbitrary development channel, please /msg me....thanks!07:57
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!lilo:*! A new channel, for your convenience: #freenode-pastebots contains all known pastebots which can be invited to channels on freenode.08:33
dilysMerge to rocketfuel@canonical.com/dists--devel--0: fix roomba snapshot (patch-44, david.allouche@canonical.com)09:39
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TDhi, i'm having big problems with the launchpad. is anybody around?10:12
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kikosure11:05
kikoTD, what's up?11:06
TDi can't figure out how to add a new POT file, for one11:06
kikofor an existing project?11:06
TDyes11:07
kikowhich project is that?11:07
TDit has one pot, i'd like to add another11:07
TDautopackage11:07
stubMorning11:08
kikohttps://launchpad.ubuntu.com/rosetta/products/autopackage/autopackage-1.011:08
kikoTD, you've tried "edit this template", I assume?11:08
TDthat would edit the pot file for the main program, yes? i wanted to add a new pot for a different program11:09
kikoTD, wouldn't that be a different product? i.e., not autopackage?11:10
TDwell, it's a component of it. it's a frontend program for the core code11:11
TDi thought autopackage was the project, and autopackage-1.0 was the template for the core, and that for other POT files, i'd add new templates11:12
TDrather than actual new projects11:12
kikohmmm, indeed, there is support for more than one template per product11:12
kikootoh, I don't seem to see an option for me to do it11:13
kikoare you Mike Hearn, TD?11:13
TDyep11:13
kikohmmm11:13
ddaaha... I remember seeing you in #arch :)11:13
TDright :) 11:13
TDi'm afraid i'm using svk these days ...11:13
kikoit may be that this functionality is disabled in the version in production11:13
ddaayou are beta testing rosetta?11:13
TDit's still in beta?11:14
TDoops :)11:14
TDoh well. it *looked* ready when i played with it11:14
kikoTD, I'd suggest trying to grab a hold of daf or carlos, which is probably only going to happen on monday!11:14
ddaahu... well, I think so... I'm not a rosetta person...11:14
TDok11:15
kikoit's all rather alpha-ish, though it does offer the essential po-import/export functionality.11:15
TDyeah11:15
TDalright11:15
ddaaexcept the boss felt like he needed to put something out to keep the world looking in our general direction, or he thought that was the best way to keep the productivity up, or something like that :)11:16
TDddaa: you work for mark now huh?11:17
ddaaYep. Been on payroll since july.11:17
kikoddaa, it's more that he wants to validate the general concepts, AFAICT11:17
TDok11:17
ddaakiko: you're certainly better aware of what is going on than I11:17
TDyeah the constant "not ready yet" signs are a bit annoying11:18
TDi'm still trying to figure out what your business model is :)11:18
kikowait for January. :)11:18
TD"corporate desktop debian" is about the best guess so far11:18
ddaaTD: actually it is _much_ broader than that.11:19
kikoindeed11:20
TDok. "make pots of cash out of debian" :)11:20
TDand save the world while you're at it11:20
ddaaMore like "change the opensource world, and sell associated services".11:21
ddaaQuite vague, indeed, but I'm not too concerned about that. Our job is to make software that rocks. We leave cashflow issues to the execs :)11:22
TDhmm :)11:22
TDi'd personally want to know the business model before committing to a job, but that's perhaps just me11:24
TDddaa: i guess you are a bazaar hacker, yes?11:26
ddaaAt the time, my perspective was "i'm looking for a job, that stuff is going to be fun, it actually has a small chance of going big and profitable, and in any case it's going to be good on my resume". When you have only one year of employment behind you, that's often enough.11:27
ddaaI did not actually hack on bazaar yet. I have some responsibilities in some yet-unannounced project, and I have a plenty of work to do on pyarch and pybaz. Actually I already have more work than I can handle. So I leave baz to the rest of the team. 11:28
TDok, fair enough :)11:29
=== TD can't really talk
ddaanp11:29
ddaanice to see you on board11:29
TDheh, i meant i can't talk about job stability etc, i work for codeweavers after all :)11:31
TDpretty much the textbook case of risky business11:31
TDbut it's fun :)11:31
ddaaso, in a nutshell, what is the business plan of codeweavers?11:32
TDmake money selling services and products based on wine11:33
TDit's fairly sound. we do make money, so i guess there must be something to it :)11:34
TDthe travel is nice too though i don't get to do much of that being a student11:34
ddaaI guess the risk in the business is that if the app developers decide to become obstructive (I can imagine M$ doing that) they can actually sink the value.11:35
TDit's not so much that. the risk is more simply that of surviving until desktop linux really takes off11:36
TDyou can survive on selling to the enthusiast/end user market, we know this because we have11:36
TDbut it's not much of an existence. we're all waiting for corp desktop to take off11:36
TDthe other risk is that you never know how much it'll cost to make an app work before you actually do it :)11:36
TDnaturally customers don't like that11:36
ddaaI see what you mean. There is also the fact that your window of existence is between "desktop linux is taken seriously enough to generate profit for the company" and "desktop linux is mature enough not to need wine".11:38
ddaaotoh there are plenty of nice markets in that window, some of them may last for a long time.11:38
ddaa* niche markets11:38
=== TD nods
TDwell, i doubt that wine will ever be unnecessary. the main problem is that there's lots of custom/vertical-market software in the world, and it doesn't make much sense to rewrite it11:40
TDsame way that lots of systems run on DOS11:40
TDor have text-mode UIs etc. old software hangs around for ages11:40
ddaayeah, these the niche markets I was referring to.11:40
TDok, so it will one day be unnecessary. but by that point i'll be an old man smoking a pipe and won't care :)11:40
TDright11:40
TDalso we hope to get a nice slice of the porting market. at the moment we aren't as slick at that as we'd like to be11:41
ddaayou mean native porting?11:41
TDwe've done a few ports, but we don't have the resources to do proper ports (eg with GTK+ guis). also the customers don't ask for them, which is a problem when i'm trying to sell this to my boss :)11:41
ddaaconsulting for porting windoze apps to unix?11:41
TDat the moment we do winelib porting11:41
TDie, improving wine so that app works better, giving you a "port"11:42
TDit's not really native though. the next step is to do consulting for hybrid ports11:42
TDwhere the app stays using some win32 apis like file/memory management and boring stuff, but gets native UI, native package management, icon theme integration etc11:42
ddaayou can only go that far in a demand-driven way11:42
ddaamost users have no conscious demand for good UI11:43
TDright now though most of the ports we deal with are quite specialist apps and the companies typically don't sell many copies, so native-ness isn't a big deal for them11:43
TDby demand i meant, demand from the companies doing the ports11:43
TDlike I said, they're so specialist that the free market doesn't optimize out the non-native GUIs like it would for commodity apps11:43
ddaathey know a really bad UI when they use it. They (sometimes) know a really good UI when they use it, but anything in between makes no difference to corporate users.11:43
ddaaThat's one thing I really hate with the software market. A lot of the niche software is incredibly bad UI-wise, but the users are not the prescriptors, so what gets out is a general feeling that "computers are ugly and unfriendly".11:45
=== TD nods
TDyes, it's bad. but just a manifestation of "software is an immature industry"11:46
TDmost developers have no usability training11:46
ddaaI have slightly different perspective.11:46
ddaaIn most niche markets, you need not be usable. It's more the execs having no notion of what software usability means.11:47
ddaaAnd wider issues of execs disregarding the work experience of the clerks.11:47
TDhmm, perhaps11:48
ddaaTraining developers in usability would only marginally improve the situation. The economic logic that leads to such bad UI in nich software remains.11:48
TDthere are proprietary apps with good UI though, so i don't think that applies universally11:48
ddaaThe "marginally" lies in that developpers, when given a choice prefer to do something better.11:49
ddaaI always feel pain when I see clerks using booking, banking, administrative, etc. software... and see them curse. </rant>11:50
ddaaTD: yes, when there is a competition, a better UI is an asset. Often, there is no competition to speak of in niche markets.11:51
TDyep11:51
TDi do think usability training can help with that. people think about it as they go11:51

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